Photo ID Laws: Welcome Back, Jim Crow?

Only Democrats can get away with implying that blacks are too lazy, ignorant, or stupid to go down to the local DMV and obtain a driver’s license or non-driver photo ID card.

Voter ID laws, designed to protect the integrity of the voting process, have been a hot topic in recent years. Politico reports that so-called civil rights groups have accused Texas Governor Rick Perry of signing a “strict” voter ID law that discriminates against blacks and Hispanics. Under the previous law, voters were allowed to show documents like utilities bills, bank statements, and paycheck stubs if they didn’t have photo ID. The new law takes effect on January 1.

Is the Texas law discriminatory because it applies only to blacks and Hispanics? Or does the local DMV bar these groups from applying for driver’s licenses or non-driver photo ID cards? Is their application fee higher than everyone else’s? Perhaps blacks and Hispanics are disproportionately averse to posing for bad photos that add 20 pounds.

Judith Browne Dianis, co-director of the Advancement Project, said in a statement that the Texas law is “part of the largest legislative effort to turn back the clock on voting rights in our nation in over a century.” Dianis, who is black, alluded to America’s favorite corpse, Jim Crow, a system of government-approved racial segregation.

You may recall from history books that certain states tried to prevent black Americans from exercising their right to vote. NAACP president Benjamin Jealous implied, with a straight face, that requiring blacks to show photo ID was akin to requiring them to pay poll taxes or take literacy tests. The president of a national organization purportedly concerned about the dignity of “colored people” perpetuates the idea that grown black men and women can’t and shouldn’t be expected to get off their butts, go to the DMV, and obtain a government-issued photo ID (for free in some cases).

Even more bizarre, black lawmakers in Georgia walked out of the Capitol in 2005 after their colleagues passed a voter ID law. By staging such a spectacle, they sent the message that blacks are not responsible enough to fulfill state requirements like everybody else.

According to a study from the New York University School of Law, reports the Washington Post, a quarter of black voters don’t have a valid government-issued photo ID, compared with eight percent of whites. But a racial disparity is not evidence of racial discrimination. There are no laws preventing these voters from obtaining a valid government-issued photo ID.

72 Comments, 28 Threads

1.
Suthenboy

“The only people who should take issue with voter ID laws are those who intend to perpetrate a fraud.” I think you hit the nail squarely on the head with that one line.

I am dumbfounded by how many blacks allow themselves to be treated and talked about, about the strategies that are used to appeal to them as voters. If it were me, I would be howling about it until the sky fell.

With rights go responsibilities. The right to vote goes with the responsibility to inform oneself about the issues and the candidates, and to cooperate with any reasonable measures that are intended to combat vote fraud.

It is long past time to repeal the Voting Rights Act. The reasons why it was enacted no longer exist, and at this time, it is simply one more way for Washington DC to exercise centralized control over some of the States.

It appears blacks ,in particular, want to portray themselves as the hapless vicitm of those naughty white folks!!…don’t any of you remember greatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgrannie was a slave? How can you whities be so heartless as to suggest black folks get a life and stand on their own two feet and achieve anything?? damn you people!!! now where’s my welfare check?? and that free cheese???hhmmmm

Also, how do you cash a welfare check without id..is there something we don’t know?…direct deposit..well, didn’t they need id to do that??..NO??? WHY THE HECK NOT??? what’s going on out there????

ID FOR EVERYONE!!!and demand it be shown at elections!! demand it…
Yep, even you you poor depressed black folks and even if that slave granny was sold into slavery by her own african people…hhmmmm I had nothing to do with it, and the blacks should be ashamed that they are still mired in the mud of slavery not wanting to do better.
…no ID…NO VOTE…
I’m sick and tired of the whole thing, it’s ridiculous that we not expect people to be responsible for themselves and their actions.

In 1977 I remember seeing a single panel cartoon of a man sitting in a government office talking to a concerned woman behind a desk.
The Caption read; “They discriminated against me because I was Incompetent.”
.
At the time I thought it was funny, not prophetic.

“Only Democrats can get away with implying that blacks are too lazy, ignorant, or stupid to go down to the local DMV and obtain a driver’s license or non-driver photo ID card.”

It’s because the Democrats have for years decided that blacks be maintained on the plantation and, like farm animals, are too stupid to live on their own and constantly need to be taken care of. If I were black, I would be very, very, insulted by this type of treatment by the Democratic party. I would also be insulted by the way Democrats think that we can only survive with their help and don’t have a chance to stand on our own two feet and create decent lives on our own. I would be insulted that the Democrats treat us like children that need to be taken care of because we just are too poor and too dumb to go out on our own and make a success in that big, bad, business world out there.

Bunk. Tell all of that to men like Herman Cain or Allen West. The way Democrats treat blacks is insulting, degrading, and just plain racist, because Democrats think that blacks can do absolutely nothing without out their money and help.

Yes, if I were a black man I would be very insulted by this and would vote Republican in 2012. If, for anything else, simply to show that my self-respect dmands it of me.

You have to remember that those infamous Jim Crow laws were put in place by Democrats. For decades following the Civil War, you were more likely to see a credible UFO than see a Republican in the South. I was born in Alabama in 1957 and got to see it up close and personal.

George Wallace – who stood in the schoolhouse door and proclaimed “Segregation now, segregation forever!” was a Democrat till the day he died.

Lester Maddox – who issued hachet handles to his restaurant patrons to beat any blacks who dared to enter – was a Democrat.

Bull Conner – who turned the firehoses and dogs on civil rights protesters in Birmingham – was a Democrat.

Al Gore’s father voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act as did Bill Clinton’s mentor Senator Fullbright, along with most or all other southern Democrats in Congress.

The list can go on and on. Now, Democrats pander to get blacks votes but deep down, it seems their opinion of blacks has never changed.

I for one, have absolutely no preference towards any of the parties. I think it highly unfair to blame Democrats, when Republicans may also have the same view. And trust me, I would say the same if any political party was being shown an extreme bias.

Maybe this is why the unemployment rate among blacks is so much higher than whites. You have to show a picture ID when hired to prove who you are and something else to prove that you are eligible to work in the United States. Every newly hired employee is required to fill out an I9 and show identification. If they can’t do that then they can’t keep the job.

While I wholeheartedly agree with you on that, I would also suggest that some of the Democrat votes in African-American precincts are actually coming from the Deceased-American community. I used to live in Chicago, so I know what I’m talking about here!

And no, anybody with any dignity and self-respect wouldn’t put up with that either.

I don’t exist. Especially to black politicians. I’m educated. Worked, now retired. I live in the suburbs. I’d be willing to bet that when it comes time poll the political views of blacks, as I actually vote gets lumped in with my white neighbors, whereas the votes of inner city blacks are extrapolated to cover the fact that I am part of the African-American population. I’ve felt for years that’s the only way they could continue to come up with those 95% figures for blacks voting Democrat. They simply ignore blacks who aren’t actually in the “ghetto”, and assign them the same voting patterns. BTW, having had to drive to work for thirty years, I do have a drivers license. In any case, you’re surprised that black political leaders prefer to treat blacks as victims? That’s been their M.O. for years – especially in the inner cities. Black political figures are quick to tell inner city blacks, that their lot in life is not due to bad choices on their part, but a plot by “whitey”. The perfect constituency for a black politician would be a poor, unemployed, uneducated, public black living on public assistance. Totally dependent. Ask yourself, with some of the longest serving members of Congress, why is there so little “pork” in minority districts. As long as some members have been in Congress, you shouldn’t be able to walk three feet through their districts without tripping over some government facility. But there’s nothing. They never seem to bring “the bacon” home. It’s as if they don’t want their constituents to get ahead. These politicos are quick to fill their own pockets, but loathe to do anything for “their people”- except whine. A district full of working INDEPENDENT blacks, wouldn’t serve their purposes.

The part of this I find interesting is that Texas already has a long standing law requiring ALL ADULTS to carry on there person a from of positive photo identification. If you go to vote and don’t have an ID then in Texas you are already in violation of the law. I have taken all my kids down to DMV and gotten them IDs at 13. Its a pain, but it is not hard.

Ah yes, the “show me your papers please” reference to what? Hitler und the Nazis? You obviously have not rational argument against the voter id law and have to resort to attacking proponents of it.

Maybe if Al or Jesse or Sheila or Maxine or the CBC or the NAACP or Black Panthers came out and said, “hey homeys, go out and get your picture id – if you have any problems then let us know and we’ll provide real help instead of just crying about a non-existant racial issue” then we could get past this stupid nonsense. What libtards do not understand is voter id is not to prevent legally authorized people from voting, it is to prevent the unauthorized/dead/underaged/dogs/cats/goldfish/illegals/non-residents from voting.

You are attacking a straw man. You are attacking the reference to the Nazis as referring to the voter ID law. It did not refer to that law and was referring to the law requiring every adult in Texas to carry an ID on them at all times in a public place. Those are two very different things as you should know.

“What libtards do not understand is voter id is not to prevent legally authorized people from voting, it is to prevent the unauthorized/dead/underaged/dogs/cats/goldfish/illegals/non-residents from voting”

Liberals understand perfectly well…there is no “misunderstanding”… they are not stupid…they constanly lie about their intentions and their motivations, just like Muslims do.

They KNOW the Voter ID law would make elections more “accurate”, and thats exactly why they are against it.

They INTEND to enable voter fraud as much as possible, and LIE about it.

You need to repeat that in every European language, because it’s required to carry papers in EVERY European state–and most other nations around the world too. Our country is very weird that way. The attempt to make it seem like only a Nazi would do that is ridiculous, since it’s the norm. It’s also a very nicely archetypical example of the petite-fascist mindset of the American left.

But by my standards, most European countries would qualify as oppressive. In America, we don’t demand people carry official papers just to live their lives. We require ID for drivers, people purchasing alcoholic beverages, etc., but not just for breathing.

Just because something is “common” doesnt make it right.
Or desireable.

Families of inbreeds, chosen by God Himself to Rule over the lowly subjects is pretty common “over there”.

So is a “surrender monkey” appeasemeent mentality that begets war and humilliation until some tough kids from Brooklyn and Iowa (who dont need to carry ID at home) have to come and save your ass every generation or two.

Nothing in Europe or anywhere else outside our own borders, or or own Constitution, needs to be emulated by us…

We’ve got it down better than all of the rest of them combined, they’re STILL trying to play Catch-up.

It’s a parody on the over-used saying, “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist (or brain surgeon) to …. ” After all, such a saying is still useful, even if it is trite, and in this way LaShawn still gets to use it without it being tiresome.

How about one vote per tax dollar paid? If you paid $15,000 in income taxes you get 15,000 votes. If you are on welfare and pay no income taxes you get no votes. If you are wealthy but avoid income tax via loopholes you get no votes. Thus, those who pay the bills get the votes. Taxation WITH representation, and no representation without taxation.

I wonder what the average black American thinks about this voter ID law. After all, it’s the professional racists who are bringing this up since their job depends on the existence of discrimination.

A few weeks ago a poll was released that showed the vast majority of Hispanics (>70%) favored voter ID, which I’m sure was a shocker to their self-selected community activists who are constantly conflating illegal immigrants with legal immigrants when everyone, most especially the immigrants themselves, know there is a huge difference. Black people probably have no love lost for illegal immigrants, either, given the scarcity of jobs right now. I would bet most of them favor voter ID as well. If someone bothered to ask them instead of listening to activists whose livelihood depends on the continuation of racial divisions (perceived or real) in the US.

It sad, but the foodstamps and welfare checks have become addictions; many are willing to trade their diginty to receive their fix. Often minorities in political positions of power have become the “pushers” preying on those weaker (of thier own color).

Why aren’t white voters “voters of white” but “voters of color” aren’t colored voters? And why the capital “W” in “White voter” but lower case “c” in voters of color? When will the day come that we are all just simply Americans? Who gives a damn if you are white, black, brown, or green? Did I miss the larger issue here?

As long as there are professional racists, i.e. people who make their living off of racism there will be divisions between us. There are hundreds of thousands of these people, ready to detect, point out and address racism even if it means manufacturing problems where none exist. At the top you have the likes of Al Sharpton, but they’re present all the way down to diversity training personnel in your local company or school. They propagate the very issues they have dedicated themselves to eliminating. It’s just job security.

“As long as there are professional racists …” Exactly so, Dana. We all know that if one goes LOOKING for something, it will be found. That seems to be doubly so if searching for racism. Remember the study about 10 yrs. ago with black women complaining that white women were being racist when they tossed their heads to flip back their long hair? (because most black women couldn’t do that) ANYONE, female/male, and many other races having long hair will occasionally need to “toss” it out of the face. So why are white women singled out? Just another navel-gazing “study”, where we get down to infinitesimal nit-picking that helps no one, esp. blacks.

You can’t cash a check, drive a car, or buy alcohol or tobacco without an ID. You can’t get a job without some form of ID. Do we give government benefits to people without ID? If so, how do we prevent fraud there? How do you live without some form of ID – drug dealers excepted, of course?

This argument isn’t serious. The only reason to be opposed is to promote vote fraud. Which ought to be a felony with a mandatory prison term, and we can start enforcement with the snowbirds who vote in New York and Florida. I’m not a racist, I’m against fraudulent voting.

You may have to dig a bit deeper to understand how and why black people “do not have the same access to those forms of identification.” I don’t think it’s about black people today being too poor, isolated, or immobile to make it to the DMV, or too illiterate to read, understand, and fill out the paperwork. Instead, I think the assumption is that most black people – especially poor, southern and/or inner-city black people – are afraid of the police and the government. They feel suspicious and intimidated when they have to deal with “officialdom,” so they’re less likely to voluntarily approach it in person. It’s also more common for black men to have been in prison or to have had unpleasant dealings with the police. They may feel that going to City Hall for an ID will subject them to further scrutiny and hassling from the government. And yes, I’m sure there are memories of Jim Crow floating around out there, making black people less willing to cooperate with any scheme that requires proof of something in order to vote.

And fault for that rests where? The goobermint officials (they treat everyone like crap), or the black peoples “feelings” of intimidation and suspicion?
Bullcrap! They should stand on there on two feet and proudly let everyone know they’re getting an ID so they can vote.

This supports what I was thinking: that schools should arrange field trips to the DMV to get identification cards for the kids in their junior or senior years. Part of a school’s job is preparing kids to be good citizens – so prepare ‘em.

When my wife was a single mother and needed welfare assistance (back in the late 70′s early 80′s), she needed proof of ID for herself and each of her three children. Do blacks and hispanics not need to comply with the same rules for obtaining assistance? If you can provide ID to collect a welfare check, you can provide one to vote.

My wife was a foreign student when we met in college. After we married, we went to immigration to apply for her green card (which was brown). We had to sign papers that stated that if we applied for public assistance for any reason, my wife was subject to be deported. This was in 1983. I wonder if that text still exists in the immigration forms.

I am glad you raised this. I’m an election judge in a mostly black community, and every time we have an election people walk in with their ID cards out. And, when I tell them they don’t need them, the first thing they say is, “Well, that doesn’t make any sense…how do you know it’s really me?” (I wish I could tell them, well, it’s YOUR party’s fault, LOL, but as an election judge, I’m not allowed to show prejudice). The Democratic party and black leadership do such a disservice to the black community – we’re afraid of the law, we can’t take care of our own families, we’re too stupid to pass a basic test so they have to lower standards just for us. Say what you want about Republicans, they demand that you stand on your own two feet, as opposed to the Democrats who don’t think you can.

Good for you! Any chance the rest of your community will wake up? All the Democrats do is keep black people down only the Blacks don’t see it. Even the employed blacks that I worked with actually have Conservative values but have been brainwashed into thinking they are Democrat. And if you try to point that out, they get angry and walk out. They are actually more Conservative than I am on social issues. Go figure.

You raised some excellent points, and mine may not prove anything, pro or con, to the issue. In 2005, when the photo ID issue was making its way through the Ga. Legislature, the Atlanta Journal Constitution dispatched a van into a black neighborhood, with the reported purpose of giving, no strings attached, each adult who would come to the van, have photo taken, and plastic I.D.card issued; The van was in the neighborhood all day, as I recall – Three people showed up. It well may have been a publicity gimmick on the part of the newspaper, but I have real problems with refusal, or hesitancy, to show anyone a card with your face on it. On the other hand, can they prove I am not Don Quixote??

Basically, the argument is that any issue that makes it harder to vote is “discriminatory” if it adversely affects one color of people more than another.

In that case, election days should be holidays, or at least held on the weekend. Having a job makes it harder to find time to vote, and whites are disproportionately affected since they have a lower unemployment rate.

If you told these “minority blacks” that they could get extra money by presenting a PHOTO ID…there would be a line looped 10 times around the building to get photo ID!!

Actually, I don’t believe that blacks lack photo ID….this is a ruse to perpetrate voter fraud. Requiring picture ID to confirm identity seriously puts a crimp in their ability to steal elections!! BooHoo..

Fact is that AFTER 2008, King Street Patriots in Houston suspected there had been voter fraud after hearing that a Democratic group had signed up 250,000 new voters. They began to scratch their heads after spending entire days at grocery stores and only signing up 10 new voters. They decided to focus on certain areas that sent up red flags and found one area (Sheila Jackson Lee–surprise, surprise) had 25,000 new voters. After vetting them, 18,175 were found to be fraudulent. With this level of fraud….Did Obama even win the 2008 election??????

[V]oters of color are disproportionately less likely to possess the required forms of identification and do not have the same access to those forms of identification (or to the “free” election identification certificate, for that matter) as their White counterparts.

And their evidence is what? Seems like every time I go to the DMV, regardless of which office, I’m outnumbered by minorities. I seriously doubt that this claim has any factual basis whatsoever. But that doesn’t prevent the ACLU from simply asserting it.

Requiring a ID at polling place will not reduce the fraud that much, most of the corruption is accomplished with absentee ballots. The fraud is taking place in the back rooms, prior to or after the polls close or during recounts, as in the Al Franken election.

Interesting to note that the NYU survey of people without photo-ID used weighting which assumed that a certain percentage of minorities, elderly, poor, etc do not have a phone (so they added numbers to the raw number, assuming these groups wee being underreported by a factor of whatever). They used 1994 (pre-cellphone) numbers from the Census for this (which stated that 5.2% overall did not have a phone), instead of more recent numbers which put the total at around 2%. So we can assume their “weighting” inflated the numbers.
Just a little bit of trickery I thought I’d point out.

In any even, don’t they remember the Voter Motor Law from 1993. Wasn’t the main argument in that was that it would make it easier for the “disenfranchised” to register to vote if they could do it at the same time they took care of vehicle or welfare matters at the DMV. Now they seem to be claiming otherwise.

In the 70′s they wanted to ban “only handguns” because the Constitution they said specifically protected “military-type weapons”, which to them meant long arms, not handguns, ergo handguns could be banned without violating the 2nd amendment

The elephant in the room is the crime rate. Criminals try to avoid being identified or giving the police a current address. Along the same lines, the proggies complained that some conservatives were spreading rumors during the last election that police would be at the polling places, checking voters for outstanding warrants. This too was considered racist, yet another insult to the black community. I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve never had to worry about the police running me for warrants.

“I thought when we elected a black President, we were going to get a black President. . . . I want a real black president. I want him in a meeting . . . where he lifts up his shirt where you can see the gun in his pants [and says] ’We’ve got a ‘mother@!#$%ing problem here.’ Shoot somebody in the foot.”

The implications in that now infamous spleen-venting were perfectly clear: Real African-Americans packed guns, had foul mouths, were prone to violence, and shoot people. The only racist insults missing are that they’re all lazy and on welfare.

Were Rick Perry or Rick Santorum to utter such slurs during a debate, with or without the mother@!#$%ing, they would be forced to end their candidacies for the Republican nomination for president before you could say mother@!#$%ing. However, the utterer wasn’t a conservative politician but a very liberal loser, Bill Maher and therefore it was perfectly okay and not because Maher wasn’t a politician but because he’s a lib.

You see, liberals aren’t racists, or so they would like us to think. In point of fact, virtually every social policy liberals have articulated, proposed, and passed over the last fifty years has been either race-based, designed to stir the racial or some other pot, or calculated to foster conditions, (unemployment and poverty for example), to exacerbate racial tensions.

The ultimate Democrat goal has been to create a dependency on government and a rock-solid black constituency despite have been the party that fought tooth and nail to defeat Civil Rights legislation in the fifties and sixties. They have largely succeeded and have paved the way for Barack Hussein Obama to carry those goals to fruition.

The chief accomplishment of the granddaddies of social manipulations–LBJ’s Great Society and his War on Poverty–was to substantially destroy once-strong African-American families yet Democrats escaped condemnation for that as well by skillfully employing smoke, mirrors, and an excellent if offensive offense that people like Bill Maher still use today.

It’s believed that the adage “The best defense is a good offense” originated with the 19th century Prussian military theorist, Carl von Clausewitz, but whatever its origins the line has become a staple of countless sports analysts as an observation on how best to win games. It assumes the defense isn’t as porous as that of this year’s Atlanta Falcons.

To be successfully employed in the political arena, the good offense strategy assumes the public won’t scratch beneath the veneer of attack rhetoric and discover all the talk is just a cover for lies and hypocrisy, as with tediously-constant liberal references to conservative racism to conceal liberal bigotry.

Maintaining the good offense while counting on viewers not to look behind the curtain of pretense, just previous to his bigoted description of blacks as gun-slinging hoods, Maher had hypocritically attacked Republicans and Bill O’Reilly . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5571.)

I wasn’t aware that Maher was running for office and if you’re not aware the Democratic party had always been split between the north and south. The Republicans in the 50s and early 60s were nothing like this group today. By 1880 blacks were already beginning to favor northern Dems when they realized that the Republicans didn’t free them, 190,000 black soldiers freed them. Blacks aren’t stupid and they’re not on any plantation and if you don’t know why they still vote Democratic…BTW, I agree that a photo ID is necessary and I wholeheartedly agree that Barber is one of the best race-baiters in the country, one out of only 5 or so. She makes a living off you people.

“I wasn’t aware that Maher was running for office and if you’re not aware the Democratic party had always been split between the north and south.”

Uh no. The Democratic Party was always controlled by it’s Southern Wing during the Ante Bellum period. Because first the Federalists, and then the Whigs, provided major competition in the North. And of course after the Civil War the Republicans became non existent in the South.

“By 1880 blacks were already beginning to favor northern Dems when they realized that the Republicans didn’t free them, 190,000 black soldiers freed them.”
Actually 2,213,000 Union troops had a little to do with freeing blacks. And as for blacks favoring Democrats, they had no choice in the South – when they were allowed to vote, and many of the Northern cities were dominate by corrupt Democratic machines.

“Blacks aren’t stupid and they’re not on any plantation and if you don’t know why they still vote Democratic”

Yes we are. It doesn’t take a great deal of intelligence to figure out that constantly block voting for ANY party is not the way to maximize our political pull.

“I wholeheartedly agree that Barber is one of the best race-baiters in the country, one out of only 5 or so. She makes a living off you people.”

How does not spouting the usual victimization line make Barber a “racebaiter”
Or don’t you have a clue as to what the term actually means?